TULIA TRAVESTY

Justice In Small Texas Town Has Taken Much Too Long

Retired state District Judge Ron Chapman of Dallas has brought scores of
dubiously convicted citizens of the Panhandle town of Tulia a bit closer to
long-awaited justice by recommending that the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals overturn 38 convictions and grant new trials. The wheels of justice
do grind slowly, but in this case they rolled over something like 10
percent of the town's tiny black population.

The 1999 drug busts of Tulia, population 5,000, ensnared 46 people, all but
a handful of whom were black, based on the implausible investigative work
of one informant, Tom Coleman. Coleman has no undercover narcotics
experience, has been widely branded a habitual liar and was facing various
criminal charges at the time of his court testimony.

On the basis of no solid evidence -- no drugs, no weapons, no cash, no
fingerprints, no coroborrating witnesses, no recordings and no indication
that this little hamlet was home to any of the major dealing being alleged
- -- jury after jury in Tulia was willing to convict.

The county prosecutor and sheriff were stubbornly oblivious to the growing
evidence of injustice, continuing to stand by the prosecutions until long
after it made any sense to do so. The judge who presided over the trials
reportedly complained publicly that Tulia residents were weary of the whole
affair -- as though the hundreds of years in prison to which their
neighbors had been sentenced was of no consequence.

The going for the defendants was tough outside of Swisher County, too. John
Cornyn, now a newly minted U.S. senator, refused as Texas' attorney general
until only last August to investigate the Tulia scandal. Even then, it was
a deathly quiet inquiry. As has been the investigation by the U.S. Justice
Department.

The Tulia arrests smell of racial bias, sloppy police work and law
enforcement officials more interested in convictions than justice. To help
right the wrongs, the Court of Criminal Appeals justices ought to quickly
follow Judge Chapman's advice.

Meanwhile, a special prosecutor brought in to help sort out the mess said
this week the cases would be dismissed if the appeals court remands them
for new trials. Swisher County commissioners have approved $250,000 to be
distributed based on how much time each defendant was imprisoned.

Finally, there's a whiff of justice in Tulia.